


red

by waveydnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Meet-Cute, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 05:45:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15212489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: in which they meet on a beach in florida





	red

Waves lap at his ankles, biting cold, the sound of their crashing joined by the squawking of gulls and the happy shouts of children to make a kind of music he doesn’t hear often. They have beaches in England of course, but he never sees them, and it’s been years since he’s tagged along on a holiday with his family. 

He’s on one now, though, half a world away from home with his toes buried in white American sand. He’s not supposed to be here, but there’s only so much quiet disapproval he can take before he needs a little break. Honestly, he should’ve pretended he was busy. They wouldn’t have believed him but they also wouldn’t have argued.

He’d had a momentary lapse in judgement. Florida sounded nice, a chance to get away from a job he doesn’t like very much and work on his tan, maybe reconnect with his mum a little bit. 

The sun is too hot here, though. It feels unnatural the way it beats down, unrelenting and inescapable. He stares out at the crystal blue clarity of the Atlantic and wishes he wasn’t too afraid of the sea to dive in and get some relief.

A bead of sweat rolls from his temple down his cheek and it’s officially too much for him to bear a moment longer. 

He’s halfway back to the carpark and his rented red Honda Civic when he spots something that gives him pause. 

Well, not something so much as someone. A long lean someone, laid on his front in nothing but a pair of swim trunks on a colourful beach towel.

Someone pale. Someone clearly asleep.

Someone with a much fairer than average skintone sleeping on a towel on the beach and well on their way to an absolutely _horrendous_ sunburn.

It looks so bad that Dan is compelled to stop, to look around and see if maybe this sleeping man has someone who can wake him up and make sure he doesn’t go full lobster. 

It doesn’t appear to be the case. 

He should probably just walk away. It’d definitely be weird to kneel down and wake a sleeping stranger, right?

He stands there for a full minute staring down at this man’s frying back. He probably looks like a right creep. He should walk away.

But he can’t. He knows he’ll be thinking about it for the rest of the day and maybe even well into the night. He’s already prone to insomnia as it is, he doesn’t need the guilt of knowing someone out there in the world is in pain because he was too much of a coward to try and help. 

He kneels down by the man’s shoulder and gives it a tap, his heart drumming a fast nervous rhythm against his ribs. The man stirs a little but doesn’t wake. Dan taps again, a little more firmly this time and says, “Hello?”

The man jerks awake, “Huh?”

Even knowing in the moment that none of his logic was faulty, an intense wave of regret rolls over Dan at the sheer awkwardness of it all. “Sorry, sorry I just--”

The groggy stranger sits up. “What’s--”

“Sorry, this is so weird but--”

“You’re English,” the man interrupts, reaching up and pushing his sunglasses off his nose and up onto shiny black hair..

“Wha-- oh,” Dan’s thought is stopped dead in its tracks. This man’s accent is more familiar to him than it should be, so far away from home. “So are you?” 

“Do I-- do I know you?”

Dan can’t blame the bloke for being confused. “No, sorry. This is so bloody weird but I was just walking by and I noticed-- I think you’re getting a sunburn.”

The man’s eyes widen. “Oh shit.” He tries to twist his head round to look at his back and winces. “Ow.”

“Yeah,” Dan murmurs sympathetically. “It looked pretty bad. Sorry to intrude I just--”

“No, no. Thank you, honestly. I’m such an idiot. I must have fallen asleep.” 

“You were definitely asleep.”

The man winces again. “Ow. It hurts.”

Dan can’t help his giggle. Now that the imminent fear of being told off by a stranger is gone he’s free to take notice of the fact that this man just so happens to be gorgeous. 

“Are you wearing suncream?” Dan asks. He should definitely just walk away at this point, but something tells him it’s not quite time yet.

“You sound like my mum.”

“Well maybe you should listen to her on this one, mate.”

The man rifles through a small cloth bag next to his towel and pulls out a bottle of Coppertone. “I had it, I just hadn’t managed to actually get it on yet.”

“I wouldn’t wait any longer,” Dan says. “I’ve not seen many people with skin as translucent as yours and this is America.”

The man groans. “I know. I come here every year with my parents.”

Dan shakes his head, smiling. “No excuse, then.” He realizes he’s still crouched down like a weird interloper and stands up suddenly. He doesn’t want to leave but he thinks he’s stretched this thing about as far as socially acceptable. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Oh, uh--” the man cuts himself off in a way that suggests he has more to say but is afraid to say it. 

Dan takes the bait. “What’s up?”

“I’m kind of… alone.”

Dan frowns.

“Like, here,” the man clarifies. “I snuck away from family time for a little while.”

Dan chuckles. “Me too, actually.”

“I’m not really ready to go back.”

“Me neither,” Dan lies. Why did he say that? He’s hot and sweaty and more than ready for the aircon back at the hotel.

“Right so like, you can say no of course ‘cause we don’t know each other and this is super weird but… I was wondering if you’d mind…?” He juts his chin in the direction of the suncream. “I can’t really reach my back.”

“Oh,” Dan says, and the nervous thumping in his chest returns full force. “Oh. Yeah, sure. Of course. D’you wanna…?”

“Yeah,” the man says, standing up and brushing the sand off his ass. He’s almost as tall as Dan. “Thanks so much.”

“Of course.” Dan uncaps the suncream and squeezes out a quarter of the bottle in one go. He drops it and rubs the cool white cream between his palms. “This is gonna be super cold,” he warns.

The man flinches as Dan presses his palms tenderly against the pink skin of his shoulder blades. He flinches and then he groans. 

“God that feels good.”

Dan’s stomach does a thing. A flippy fluttery thing. He pushes his hands up slowly to the man’s shoulders, watching freckles disappear behind a smear of white. He can feel the heat of the burn beneath his fingers.

“Mate,” Dan murmurs. “You’re hot.”

Well fuck. That didn’t come out right. 

The man’s shoulders lift up a little in quiet laughter, but he doesn’t say anything. 

Dan takes quite a bit more time than he should running his hands over every square inch of this beautiful person’s back. When he gets near to where the skin disappears underneath his bathing suit, Dan hesitates. He can’t put his hands that near to the ass of a person whose name he doesn’t even know, as much as he might want to. It’s a cute ass as far as he can tell. Not that he’s looking or anything. 

“It’s ok,” the man says, like he has some kind of psychic link with Dan’s innermost thoughts. “Don’t want a burn there either.”

Dan has to actively remind himself that he’s far too old to get a boner in public for no real reason. That shit hasn’t been acceptable for like ten years.

The man turns around after Dan drops his hands.

“Thanks, mate.”

Dan stares into impossibly blue eyes and wonders when he became so painfully starved for human connection that he could develop a full-blown crush on a complete stranger after all of five minutes. 

And that stranger is staring right back, smirking. “Wanna do my front?”

For just a second, Dan forgets how to breathe.

The man reaches out and pushes Dan’s shoulder gently. “I’m joking.”

Dan’s breath returns, and with it a surge of bravery. “What if my answer is yes, though?”

The beautiful beautiful man grins. “Then give me your number. Let me take you to dinner first.”


End file.
